Assistant

If you search apps made by Google on the Play Store you’ll get some pretty big hits: Gmail, Google Search, Maps and Youtube are all prominently displayed on the front page. Second page brings you apps like Google+, Play Music and Google Voice which are all still part of Google’s large portfolio of well-used apps. If you head over to the last page you’ll see an app named “Schemer” buried in with the barely installed apps that Google has made. You would never know it unless you looked, but Schemer is Google’s attempt to get you up off the couch and living your dreams. Google even looks to be putting as much time into it as they are on Google+. (more…)

Search, the cornerstone that Google is built on is getting ready to receive an overhaul pretty soon. Coming “over the next months” are semantic search results that can tell what you are looking for based on how and where you type it. The difference between searching for “an apple” or the the company Apple will be more apparent to the search engine and should make things much easier to find.

Aside from using the search functions on our browsers, where can we expect to see this? Google Assistant will most certainly make use of this feature whenever it rolls out. It seems inevitable that the two become closely related because the applications primary function will be to find things for you. One of the biggest complaints of Siri is that she is a “dumb search engine” that doesn’t always recognize what the user is looking for. Could this give Google the leg up in the voice actions department?

Once running under the codename “Majel,” Google has reportedly settled on an official name for their Siri-like competitor. That name is Assistant. Most of the dirty details surrounding this service are a mystery, however, TechCrunch believes it to be more of a “Do Engine” that would help you achieve real-life goals rather than something that will simply return search results.

According to their sources, the Android team has taken this project on with search engineer Amit Singhal to attempt to gather the world’s knowledge into a format that a computer can understand. They also want to make the service adhere to your personal life more, potentially using services like Google+ and +1 to help understand how people interact socially.

Unlike Siri though, Google will provide developers with the opportunity to tie in their products to Assistant, a move that could make the service unlike any other. Siri will always be bound to Apple’s vision, while Assistant could grow thanks to outside influences and innovators.

Google big wigs are look at a Q4 2012 unveiling of the product. While that seems so far off in the distance, remember that Google I/O with an additional 3rd day is happening in June. If Assistant is indeed launching this year, you have to imagine that we will see some sort of preview during that week. Also, Q4 is when we will likely see Jelly Bean or Android 5.0.

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